entertaining & nurturing
gluten free, gourmet pizzas with homemade pesto
roasted parsnip & carrot salad with home roasted hazelnuts & cumin, golden syrup sauce
apple cider roast pork belly with fennel bulbs
chinese pork & rice recipe served with zucchini salad
In December I started my goal of entertaining with my own cooking more often. We got new dining chairs in October which meant I could do proper sit down dinners again. I’ve been using leftover bottles from my festive cordial gifts to serve sauces in and it creates a great visual presentation.
Guests rise from their chairs reluctantly once we realise our chatting has continued until midnight – it sure helps that our new chairs are so comfortable. The dishwasher is stacked with smiles on our faces. I admire the haphazard beauty of dinner remnants left on the table – scattered napkins, half-empty glasses, the burnt out tea light candles, sauce spilt on the tablecloth and reminders of the people we’ve nurtured. My husband compliments me on yet another successful evening. I fall into bed exhausted but content.
See what feasts my cooking club friends have had lately:
Down by the Sea – Explody Full – Adventures of the Ordinary
Christa to the Max – Polka Dot Pearls – Juanita Tortilla
Hi girl,
What a fun time you guys had. The food looks delicious I bet smells good too! Thank you for the inspiration … I’m glad to hear that you are happy and surrounded by loving people and smiles. (-:
Cheers!
♥ … ♥
Your home made dishes look so tasty and fresh and I’m not surprised that they provide one of the ingredients in creating a good evening in with friends.
We recently went around to some friends for a meal and their dining room chairs were so much more comfortable than our hard wooden ones, it would nice to change ours too!
Sarah x
Love the look of the pizza with the homemade pesto, and those little sauce bottles – so cute!
All of your food looks totally delicious Lucent, I can see that your dinner guests would be very happy!
“proper sit down dinners” so jealous! Last night I had a friend over for dinner and the four of us sat on the ground around our coffee table…we have no dining table…
What a delightful word picture you painted of the satisfaction felt when you have entertained well and your guests have left! The roasted carrot and parsnip salad looks absolutely delicious and is now on our menu for the upcoming week – hope you don’t mind that I’m copying
That pizza looks so good, I shouldn’t be reading about food at dinner time! I love having dinner parties, there’s something so wonderfully fulfilling about them. You’ve described it perfectly!
MmMm! As usual, you’ve taken beautiful photos of some delicious looking edibles. The “apple cider roast pork belly with fennel bulbs” picture alone is mouth watering.
We made a similar resolution! I think I get my love of hosting from my mom.
Wow, these meals look tasty! Sounds like you’ve had some successful dinner parties. If the guests stay til midnight it’s proof of a good time.
It all looks and sounds so good! I wish we had room for a proper dinner party. Soon, I hope
All of those meals sound/look amazing! We started being more adventurous with our food at the beginning of the year, but then had to scale it back because I started to get sick from it (we’re still not sure why). Now I’m trying the FODMAP diet – is that what you tried a while back?
x Jasmine